Childhood Fears

[Caity Lynn]

It's a horror movie, in which the world is taken over by Alien Spiders. The longer they live, the more people they kill, and the BIGGER (I'm talking sky scraper sized) they get.

The ending it terrible too, but I won't spoil it. Google it, I'm sure they're talking about it.

 

[jayem]

Thanks to my brother, I had an intense fear of aliens and UFOs. My mom bought him this UFO book for his birthday, and every time I refused to do the dishes (HIS chore, btw) he would show me that book. I was especially afraid of this picture of some 1950s alien called The Flatwoods Monster. You can google it yourself because to this day it still freaks me out. My mom eventually threw the book out.

Also, my dad used to tell me aardvarks lived under our basement steps. Not knowing what the heck an aardvark was and it sounding like something scary, I hated walking up/down those stairs since they didn't have vertical slats and somebody could grab your foot. I later found out he did this intentionally since he kept his gun/paperwork downstairs. Now, I just think it's funny and it showcased my dads bizarre sense of humor.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

When I was a little girl I was scared of old, burned down, and/or dilapidated buildings. Now -- I LOVE all of the above!



One fear that has stuck with me, though, is my intense fear of caterpillars. They were all over the place when I was kid and all the neighbouring kids would collect and play with them. NOT ME! I was horrified by their movement. I refused to touch them and got petrified if anyone "chased" me with one (it happened!) I can't even look at photos of them to this day. I get an intense bolt of fear and adrenaline shoot through my body if I see one. I am that scared of them.

 

[Down2BDapper]

I was and still am afraid of the country.

When I was five, me and my family moved back to Texas from New York and for about a month before we moved into our suburban house we had to live with this old couple who were friends of my parents. Their house was a farm house with miles (or what seemed like miles) of land in all directions and their granddaughter would tell me scary stories at night about headless corpses hanging from trees and crazy maniacs on the loose and stuff, so I was always afraid that when I went outside there would be a killer out there and no one around to hear me if I screamed because we were so isolated. This is also the place where I developed my fear of spiders, which I also still have to this day. I guess I'm just a city boy at heart, because everything about the country scares me.

 

[Diamondback]

Tried to post this last night, but something nuked the Net connection at Krispy Kreme...

So, if chivalry is a life choice, if the zombies are attacking, are you going to stop and help a lady out? lol

Depends... has she been infected, or am I gonna have to abandon one of my people to make room for her? Which begs the question: what do you do if your Significant Other is among the horde?

Did things you guys happen across in media or whatever as kids "scar you for life" I know some movies I watched as a kid scared the pants off me for years.

In movies no, it was reality--a catastrophic nervous breakdown triggered by the death of my maternal grandfather. ("Catastrophic" as in "before and after aren't even recognizable as the same person"...) Although when you have an "assimilative personality" and action movies/TV-shows as a vice, that tends to result in a lotta stuff grafted into your skull that ain't pleasant either... like not being certain if the guilty conscience I pack is my own or Robert "The Equalizer" McCall's coming along for the ride along with so much of the rest of his mind.

As a kid, and now, I'm afraid that a cockroach is going to climb into my throat while I sleep and lay eggs. As a result of something I watched on the telly as a kid, I just remember an experimental ciggy that had roach eggs in it. When they found the poor test people,they were dead and there were thousands of roaches coming out of their mouths. To this day I CAN NOT sleep if there is a roach in the room. Spiders I can kill, roaches, I call Daddy.

This is one advantage to sleeping on your gut: no open mouth=no roach entryway. What you saw sounds like a late-night "B" horror-movie...

I heard the same mors out in the midwest somewhere. And yes of course, a gentleman always helps the girl. Knowing me I'd probably roll in on a column of WWII vintage tanks!

Too slow, Slick--by the time you roll up, they'll hear you coming and be swarming you. Better a much faster vehicle like KARR, where I could roll in, evac the lady and roll out at 90-120 or faster... and the engine noise at that speed should help lure the shamblers into my beeline for the nearest fortification or armored force like rats to the Pied Piper with a decent amount of lag to get a county or two ahead of 'em...

Overcoming your fears is like combat, you have to assess, adapt and overcome.

Training and conditioning yourself help too--the samurai didn't go from normal to "accepting the Fifth Circle of Combat" overnight, it took many years of conditioning and meditation to reach that point...

----------------
Now playing: Jerry Goldsmith - The Landing
via FoxyTunes

 

[Caity Lynn]

^Head shot. Once they've changed, They're dead.

In my group of friends it's "If I've been infected, wait until I'm starting to slow the group down, and head shot while I'm asleep." [huh]

 

[Ethan Bentley]

Thanks to my brother, I had an intense fear of aliens and UFOs. My mom bought him this UFO book for his birthday, and every time I refused to do the dishes (HIS chore, btw) he would show me that book. I was especially afraid of this picture of some 1950s alien called The Flatwoods Monster. You can google it yourself because to this day it still freaks me out. My mom eventually threw the book out.

Being abducted by aliens was mine until about the age of 13.

P.S. who wouldn't be frightened by the Flatwoods Monster - reminds me a bit of Mothman.

 

[Caity Lynn]

^ I refuse to even look up stuff about Mothman.

 

[DutchIndo]

Me it was always Aliens (Not illegal) not Zombies. When I was younger I saw an article in some tabloid about the different types of Aliens. They had drawings of like 5 I think. On a night hikes in Boy Scouts I had visions of them grabbing my legs. I would skirt any overhanging bushes on the trails. Some of you guys have Zombie weapons I have Chupacabra/Nephilim weapons !

 

[Diamondback]

Some of you guys have Zombie weapons I have Chupacabra/Nephilim weapons !

lol Either way, they're "COMWEC* Survival Tools", right?
*COMWEC=COmplete Meltdown of WEstern Civilization

Chance favors the prepared mind.--Louis Pasteur
Is it thus reasonable to draw the corollary that chance disfavors the unprepared mind? lol

 

[Foofoogal]

I guess I'm just a city boy at heart, because everything about the country scares me.

this is funny as just about everything about the city scares me. I lived in and near Houston till recently for at least 30 years after coming from the country and never got used to it. Ever. Especially freeways that are insane to me. Why? 2 million people in 2000 and many more now for sure.
http://houston.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm.
My brain flat cannot compute why people want to live like roaches on top of each other (jobs I know of course) but I still think with all the tech stuff and so much land everywhere we should all be spread out more. This isn't 1850.

The movies the Blob and the Birds is why I have not watched any scary movie since then. My kids were forbidden to watch them also but of course snuck down the block to the cousins house. I always knew though as they wanted to crawl in bed with us and I would go afussing. lol

 

[Sertsa]

Until I was 8, we lived in an old house in Cleveland that had an archway between the kitchen and dining room. In that archway, there were shallow closets. I was scared of that archway. I would often run by it if the lights in the dining room were off and no one was around, and I had pretty vivid dreams about something trying to grab me and pull me in.

Some years later, I overheard my mom telling some people about that house, and that there was a hollow/hidden space behind the closet. She always wanted to tear it open, but my dad would not let her. Then, she said, after they sold the house, she got out some tools to finally see what was in there, but again, me dad stopped her, telling her it wasn't our house to mess up anymore. She thought there might be a treasure back there. I later asked her about it, and where exactly the hidden space was, but I already knew the answer. It was exactly where I regularly dreamt a hand kept trying to pull me in.

 

[DutchIndo]

lol Either way, they're "COMWEC* Survival Tools", right?
*COMWEC=COmplete Meltdown of WEstern Civilization

Chance favors the prepared mind.--Louis Pasteur
Is it thus reasonable to draw the corollary that chance disfavors the unprepared mind? lol

I don't know about you but alot of my friends are getting too chummy for me. "Hey I know who's house I'm going to when things get bad !" I've been hearing that alot lately.

 

[Caity Lynn]

lol, I know who I'm finding and tagging along with. Now HE has a crazy plan.I just hope I can get to him, I'd make it a few months on my own probably.

 

[Sertsa]

When I was in grade school, I was affraid of BLOODY MARY - my best friend at the time told me if you go into the bathroom and turn off the lights and say bloody mary three times that this evil blood covered lady with wild looking hair jumps out at you in the dark and tries to get you and kill you... I told her to prove it so we were in the bathroom with the lights off (it was pitch black) and we were giving it a try of course nothing happend so my friend tells me it only works when you are alone...so needless to say I never did try it alone because I was too scared and after that even though nothing happened it just kind of creeped me out - I did not like having to go into the bathroom in the dark at night to much anymore.

Brooksie

A friend called me at about 3 in the morning a few months ago, as something had frightened her, deeply. She didn't tell me what happened, but instead, she launched into the story that, back in high school, her and a group of girls did the Bloody Mary thing, and she said she swears she saw the mirror darken, but they all ran out scared and screaming. She got a little freaked as she was telling the story and needed to talk about non-spooky stuff. I have no idea what brought on her need to call me, or telling me about that, but after just talking about other stuff for a while she said thanks for helping her calm down and get her back to OK. (A lot of my friends are a little ... odd).

 

[Sertsa]

lol, I know who I'm finding and tagging along with. Now HE has a crazy plan.I just hope I can get to him, I'd make it a few months on my own probably.

If you're willing to not only fling a spider, but chase it down and beat it 20 times with a shoe, I think you'll do well against the zombies. ... You know, as I envision that, I never really saw the anti-zombie capabilities of women's shoes before, and high heels seem like they'd be really deadly. Just don't try running in them.

 

[Caity Lynn]

Actually I can run very well in heels. The heel can be hollowed out for storage...hmm....

ON topic: I was also deathly afraid a shark would eat me at the beach.

 

[Brooksie]

Spiders are just plain horrifying in my book, I am ultra afraid of running into a web and have one crawl down my back and bite me. Have hated them since childhood*Shudders*

 

[Diamondback]

I don't know about you but alot of my friends are getting too chummy for me. "Hey I know who's house I'm going to when things get bad !" I've been hearing that alot lately.

This is why I'm very picky about who I'll call friends--there are a few here who may potentially become so someday, but most of my very few friends are faculty and classmates from my college days. If I specifically call somebody a "friend", as opposed to just an "acquaintance" (whether a "valued" one or lesser), it means I would quite literally be willing to trade my life for theirs.

Anybody short of that, I might help them to the extent I can spare, but my responsibilities are to "my people", and outsiders are on your own.

If you're willing to not only fling a spider, but chase it down and beat it 20 times with a shoe, I think you'll do well against the zombies. ... You know, as I envision that, I never really saw the anti-zombie capabilities of women's shoes before, and high heels seem like they'd be really deadly. Just don't try running in them.

Problem is, you have to be at point-blank range, and just like the Borg, if you're that close you're probably already infected.

 

[JennyLou]

I use to be afraid of elevators, escalators and fire when I was a child.